The application uses freely available public data from the National Atlas of the United States to show the locations of the public land held by the Federal Government 'for all Americans', data that has not been easily accessible while out and about.

The iOS app was released first, and over the next week, the app was downloaded 443 times. Five days after that, the Android application was released, riding on the promotion of the iOS app, and with a significant call to action from the developers to the Android users who had been asking for a release on their platform. The results were clear. For all the bluster and noise about a demand for apps, the Android adoption was far lower than Apple, with just 150 downloads over the first seven days of availability.

iOS vs Android downloads (image and data: Technomadia.com)

Two Steps Beyond's Chris Dunphy points out that this is just one case, and there are factors that could affect this app.

We simply have more Apple fans who follow us which might skew sales of our apps – but when looking at our stats our blog is viewed on Apple devices only about 30% of the time.

RVers, the target audience of our apps, might tend towards iOS devices over Android – but based on discussions in RVing forums and groups, we don’t feel this is true.

Android users simply don’t buy apps at the same pace as iOS users.

As the former Director of Competitive Analysis for Palm and Palmsource, Dunphy has seen this pattern before, when Symbian OS dominated smartphone sales but had little impact on the app economy.

Nevertheless US Public Lands, Two Steps Beyond's State Lines, and other travel apps such as AllStays' Camp & RV application (that sells 10 iOS apps for every single Android app) are further indications that the smart developer will look beyond the market share and unit volumes pushed out, and look at the value of the end user. There will always be variations for individual apps and niche topics, but time and again developing for Apple has been proven to give developers more engagement, more downloads, and more returns, over Android.